Investing in people: Intermediate Labour Markets as pathways to employment

Australia’s current system of vocational support for long-term jobless people essentially follows a ‘work-first’ strategy. International evidence, alongside experience of the Brotherhood of St Laurence, shows that work-first is not a viable strategy for these harder-to-employ population groups. They need personal support to acquire skills and greater self-esteem in the workplace before they can maintain a mainstream job. Government funding for these more intensive types of programs is limited and fragmented. The Brotherhood’s approach, also used effectively overseas, is to use an Intermediate Labour Market (ILM) as a bridge between long-term unemployment and the mainstream labour market. The aim of this research report is to examine the effectiveness of using ILMs to get the long-term jobless into mainstream employment; with a particular focus on the Brotherhood’s ILM approach.